


The Hopes And Fears Of All The Years

by deandratb



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Goat Guy AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: An AU based onthe Goat Guy story.Schneider has a yearly tradition with his stepmom that includes Lydia trying to marry him to her daughter.





	The Hopes And Fears Of All The Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subparauthorings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subparauthorings/gifts).



> AU request. I don't even know what this is but happy birthday!!

**1992.**

Schneider’s upbringing was not especially religious. Father wasn’t a spiritual or sentimental man; after he remarried, his new wife was indifferent to faith. And Schneider’s mother didn’t have any beliefs he was aware of–certainly none that had taken root in him during his first few years.

His second stepmother, who became a severe and sometimes cruel presence in his life when he was nine, wouldn’t even let the staff celebrate the holidays. If she had a religion, Schneider wanted no part of it.

But right before his fourteenth birthday, his father met Mila on a business trip and things changed for the better.

Mila was from exotic Los Angeles. She was kind to him. And when she and Father married, it was understood that she would travel back home to California several times a year.

It was her idea to take Schneider along in the winters, giving him a break from the cold and pulling him into her cheerful Christmas traditions.

Caroling displays downtown, fake snow surrounding the palm trees…his third stepmom really loved Christmas.

And though he put slim odds on her surviving the first year of marriage to Father, Schneider loved her. So he went willingly, to the weirdly warm part of America where she showed him off at festive concerts and introduced him to the confusing spectacle of Catholic Mass.

Her favorite event, she told him that year, was Bethlehem.

“The church goes all out,” Mila said, patting her hair in front of the hall mirror. “Started doing it back when I was a girl. They rent this massive building, and fill it with animals and stalls and everyone is in costume and in character.”

“Costumes?” Schneider slouched next to the door, waiting for her to finish getting ready. He was hoping the mouthwash he’d used and the expanse of Father’s towncar between them would keep Mila from catching the alcohol on his breath. The maid needed to learn to hide her stash better. “What kind of characters?”

"Well, like people in Bethlehem.” Mila sighed at his blank expression. The boy’s father wouldn’t let her take him to church regularly, he called it ‘nonsense.’ She suspected it would do Schneider good to believe in something.

“It’s like an old-fashioned town marketplace. When you enter, they give you pennies and you can trade them for little presents,. Then there are real sellers with food and crafts you can buy with your own money.”

Schneider nodded. Mila patted his cheek on their way out. “And they have the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted in your life. You’re going to love it, sweetie.” 

Compared to Vancouver in December, L.A. was a tropical paradise, but Mila made him wear a coat and hat anyway. The hat was brown and knitted and his neck itched.

“Just remember,” Mila told him as they waited to enter, those around him shivering in what apparently passed for cold there. “Everybody’s in character. It might seem weird at first but I promise, it’s fun.”

The place was buzzing with crowds of people once they got in. Schneider couldn’t figure out where to look. Loud men walked the aisles with trays of snacks, their accents reminding him that he was far from home. Colorful booths were full of clothes and handmade gifts and old books. 

As they strolled past the booths, his gaze was drawn to one selling ponchos. The woman standing inside it was gesturing broadly while she spoke rapid Spanish with a customer. She was petite, inches shorter than Schneider since his recent growth spurt, but her volume carried down the corridor. 

The ponchos were cool…though he couldn’t imagine wearing one back in the ‘Couve. They were as bright as the Latin lady’s laugh, which rang out as he and Mila arrived at the stall.

“ _Ay,_ welcome, friends!” She startled Schneider by pressing her lips to both his cheeks.

“What a handsome young man. I think this must be your first time to my stall. I am sure I would remember _ju._ ”

He shot Mila a panicked look, but she just smiled and nodded as if to say, _Play along._

“Um, thank you. I like your…stuff.”

“What a flatterer. You know, you seem strong–and intelligent. You would make a very good husband for my daughter. This is your mother? I’ll give you six goats for your son’s marriage to my daughter.”

Schneider spotted a teenage girl half-hidden behind a stack of ponchos, looking absolutely mortified. _That must be the daughter,_ he thought, watching her glare in her mother’s direction like she would rather be anywhere else in the world. He couldn’t blame her. 

He was so embarrassed that he didn’t even bother to correct the woman about him and Mila not being related. 

His stepmom shook her head with a polite chuckle. “That’s a very kind offer, of course, but we could not possibly accept. He’s far too young to be married.” 

With one last glance behind him at the women and their ponchos, Schneider followed Mila as she moved on.

**1993.**

Surprisingly, Mila was still his stepmom when Christmas arrived again.

Schneider heard her screaming at his dad sometimes, about his former nannies and babysitters and women at the office. But he was still stinging from how easily Father had dismissed his dream of becoming an entertainer, and he didn’t want to know about their problems. 

He had figured out the ideal ratio for watering down wine in the cellar to make the bottles look the same, and the estate’s cook took so many casual swigs of sherry and Schnapps during meal prep that Schneider’s attempts to drown his feelings were easy to hide.

Mostly, leaving for Los Angeles again was a relief. 

Now that he knew what to expect, Schneider was actually excited for his second trip to Bethlehem. Mila was right, that apple cider was amazing…and he wanted to see if the man who built music boxes was still there. This year he was determined to buy one and see if he could figure out how it worked.

Before the apple cider though, and before the woodworking stalls, they came upon a cheerful array of ponchos, and he realized the woman from last year was beckoning him closer.

“Ah! You are back again! Have you married your son off yet? I can raise my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your son to marry my daughter.”

The woman rolled the ‘r’ in ‘raise’ dramatically, which fascinated Schneider enough that he almost didn’t noticed the daughter a few feet away. Her curls were still springing in every direction, but she seemed taller this year. 

She offered him a small smile, and a shrug, clearly accustomed to the way her mother liked to tease the customers. 

Schneider was bewildered by the woman’s attention. Somehow, a year later, she still remembered him and the woman she had been trying to give goats to? He didn’t think he’d ever remained in someone’s memory for an entire year.

He was certain Father forgot for long periods of time that he even **had** a son. And after bringing him into the world, his mother had vanished and never looked back. 

Mila refused the offer again. “Not enough goats,” she said with a wink in his direction.

Schneider exchanged mortified looks with the daughter, and he and his stepmom went in search of cider. But when the woman at the poncho waved farewell, adding a phrase in Spanish he didn’t understand, her smile stayed with him.

**1994-1997.**

It happened again. And again. For two more years, Mila took him to California for Christmas and they went to Bethlehem and without fail–without shame–the poncho lady tried to trade goats for his marriage to her daughter. 

Then Mila caught Father with Rebecca, and a vengefully tossed mint julep was the end of that.

Though Schneider was far too old for a nanny, Rosa was somehow back in the picture before business took them all to America. Father married her as soon as the divorce papers were dry.

Before things fell apart, Pepperdine had been Mila’s idea. A Christian school to help him clean his life up, in Malibu, where he’d be near her family.

He went anyway, after she was gone, because the tuition was paid and it didn’t really matter anymore, where he was or what he did. 

But it was too weird to talk to Mila, let alone see her, now that she wasn’t his stepmom. Father called her ‘that woman’ and berated Schneider over any ties they still had to each other, real or imaginary.

Drinking until he couldn’t spell his own name was easier than fighting about it. Lines of cocaine that turned him into somebody else entirely washed the worst of it away.

He stopped returning Mila’s calls, and he let his student visa expire, and he happily forgot all about Bethlehem along with everything else that used to make him happy.

Until he landed in rehab, and it was Mila–not Father, not Rosa, not the bros of Full Sail, but Mila, who he hadn’t spoken to in more than a year–who showed up and yelled and hugged and sat by his side while he cried.

She wasn’t his stepmother anymore, but she was the closest thing he had, at twenty, to a real parent. 

After he left the detox center, she invited him to join her again at Bethlehem.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "O Little Town of Bethlehem."


End file.
